Ex-City lawyer starts an MBA in London

We have spoken to a couple of ex-lawyers who did MBAs before changing career. However this week we spoke to Seb Shorr, who has just started one at the London Business School, after recently leaving Shearman & Sterling at 5yrs PQE.  We wanted to hear why he decided to leave law at this stage, what he hopes to get out of further study, what his first impressions are and what he wants to do in the long run.  Then we’ll chat to him further down the line to find out how it’s going and what he ends up doing…

mtl:  Hi Seb, please can you tell us about being a lawyer first…

Seb:  I studied law as it was a good, safe discipline that I thought would lead to lots of options – and I enjoyed it.  Like many other lawyers, I went on to qualify because it seemed like a good use of my degree, I didn’t know what else to do at the time and I thought I could decide at a later date what I’d like to do in the long-term.  I basically fell into having a legal career without making a conscious decision.

I trained at Lovells and had a good training contract where I learnt a lot and enjoyed myself, without ever really loving it though.  I qualified into property (despite thinking at the back of my mind that I wanted to do something more commercial) because of the good client contact and tangible nature of the deals.   

At 18m PQE I considered moving away from law but wanted to get 2yrs PQE on my CV first. However, at that point I was head-hunted by Shearman & Sterling because they were setting up a new property department and needed a junior lawyer. 

It seemed like it would be (and it was) an exciting opportunity as it involved building a new practice and therefore doing a lot of marketing, which appealed to me.  The US salary was obviously a selling point too! When I joined, I didn’t envisage staying there particularly long, but I ended up staying for nearly four years because I enjoyed it so much.  I was part of an entrepreneurial, small team and earned good money, so I put thoughts of another career to the back of my mind, for a while at least. 

mtl:  What made you decide to leave then? 

Seb: After a couple of years, the department became more settled, the work became more routine, there was less of a buzz and I still didn’t love the law itself.  Ultimately I didn’t want to be in a purely advisory role where I never got to make any decisions, never followed through on deals or saw the ramifications of the decisions that were made.  The fact that lawyers just move on to the next deal and have very little continuity bothered me.  I felt restless again and wanted to feel passionate about what I was doing. 

I thought about the options open to me and spoke to a few real estate companies as going in that direction seemed like a sensible fit with what I’d been doing.  However they weren’t very keen on me making the transition without any financial experience, despite my background in the property sector.   

Without financial experience, the alternative seemed to be going in somewhere at a very low level, which didn’t appeal.  I therefore began to think about doing an MBA to reposition myself and put myself back in a situation where doors and options would be open.  I still didn’t know what I wanted to do, but knew that the course would expose me to a large amount of information about what was out there and give me a generalist business training.  

I spent six months researching the idea by speaking to people who were doing or had done one, reading websites and looking at the different schools.   I realised that what you learn on the course is only part of the process and that where you do it is equally important due to the network of contacts that you make, so I knew I had to get into one of the top institutions. 

The London Business School offers a two year programme and has a very international student base.  90% of students are non-UK as opposed to US schools which are largely American.  It is ranked very highly and I recently got married, so it was practical for us to be able to stay in London.  I started there in August 2008.

mtl:  Was it difficult to get in? 

Seb:  There is a perception that it is very competitive but you never really know who you are up against.  You have to take the GMAT before you can apply and you need a decent score.  For me the verbal side was easy but I hadn’t done maths for years and it was tough so I booked some private lessons. 

At the same time you fill in your application forms, which are time consuming and require lengthy essays about your achievements and leadership skills.  Luckily it was quiet at work at the time so I was able to get these done without too much problem. The process of applying took a further three months after making the decision to go for it.

mtl:  How is it going so far? 

Seb: I’m a couple of months into the course and it is really enjoyable and very challenging in a good way.  It’s strange to be studying again and the workload is very high.  It’s an intense experience and we combine the work with extra-curricular activities (of which there are many) plus career research.  I’m very impressed by the teaching and the quality of the other students.  People’s backgrounds are very diverse and they have all had high quality experiences in lots of different areas. Mixing with different professionals after being very closed off in the legal world for 8 years is very interesting.  

We tend to have two three hour lectures a day, which are practical and show how you will use the information in a business context, with one day off a week for career activities.  There is lots of reading for each class and regular group and individual assignments. There are also lots of clubs which focus on the different professions and organise their own activities. 

A typical day will therefore involve a class, a club meeting over lunch time e.g. with a speaker, then another class and then activities in the evening and a couple of hours of work at home that night.  They overload you completely to try and expose you to as many opportunities as possible.   

Coming in as a lawyer and being used to words, there are some courses that are easy, for example strategy, which is about constructing arguments and analysing information.  Classes like corporate finance and accounting are more of a struggle, particularly as others on the course have finance experience from their previous careers.  However they make the study groups mixed according to your background, so you can learn from your class-mates as well as the teachers.

mtl:  Are you any clearer about what you might want to do in the future? 

Seb:  Having been here a while and seen what other people have done in their careers, I can’t imagine that I would ever go back to law.  Rather than staying in real estate, I would like a business development role in industry.  I will have to work hard to get there but I feel it’s achievable. There is a dedicated careers service department that has one on one coaching with sector specialists. People either seem to want to go into finance, consulting or industry. I will have to take a fairly significant pay-cut from what I was on at Shearman & Sterling, but I am fine with that.   

If you are a lawyer who feels that you want to be more commercial and have more impact on a business, then I think doing an MBA is a great option.  It is such a good base to have and there are so many options available afterwards, whether in a start-up, in a financial institution, in a large corporate, a consultancy or as an entrepreneur.  In my class alone there are another two ex-lawyers – one from Linklaters and one from Clifford Chance, so it’s not unusual for lawyers to change careers this way.

To see the LBS website, click here.  Fees are about £25k/ year.

To attend an LBS information session, click here.

If you know any other ex-lawyers who have gone and done something interesting or unusual with their lives then please get in touch.

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